Cartoons and Clare Politics
Posted by Matt Clifford on February 14th, 2007
First, let me say it’s great to see so many of you from all over the world interested in our blog - we’re very grateful for the attention and hope you’ll continue to drop in now and then in the future.
However, I am afraid I will have to disappoint some of you now. Here are the facts as concern Clare Politics and the cartoons:
1. Clare Politics is an student-run society based in Clare College. However, it has no administrative connection to Clareification, the Union of Clare Students or the Clare College authorities.
2. Similarly, this blog is emphatically not, as has been suggested on some blogs, the Clare College blog. Our bloggers are people who are interested in the Clare Politics programme of speaker events. They are not all students of Clare College, as the society’s events are open to all members of the university.
3. The bloggers’ posts are entirely uncensored. The bloggers write independently of the College, of the student union and even of the society. They post on what they want when they want. I cannot account for the presence or absence of posts on any given topic at any given time nor do I commission posts on particular stories. I can only assure you that if one of our bloggers chooses to post on this issue, it will not be censored by me.
We’re happy to have your interest, but it’s worth bearing in mind that the world found out about this quite late (into the story’s third week). For most students here, if it ever was a big deal, it’s pretty much old news now.
Filed under: clareification, clarepoliticsnews, freespeech, religion on February 14th, 2007
Matt, perhaps I should apologise as I suspect I may have been the first to link to your blog in relation to this story. I assumed that, given the title of the blog, it was primarily by and for students at Clare.
That said, I am still surprised at the lack of comment anywhere on the Web from Cambridge students on the Clareification row. I appreciate that it may now be ‘old news’ but there are not even many ‘old comments’ about it. Is no-one even just a bit bothered that a college has censored a student magazine and is disciplining its authors?
Matt
Thanks for taking the time to post.
I have a couple of questions if i may
i) I appreciate that you are not Clare College’s Blog but it sounds as though you have pretty close links to the College and are a political society. I would have thought that the events of the past week (or three as you point out) would merit at least a post, if nothing else to update those of us who are not fortunate to live in Cambridge anymore.
ii) What has happened to the author of the piece?
iii) Is it true that he was forced into hiding? If so, why? Did he receive threats?
iv) Will the College or yourselves be scanning and showing this publication on your blog so we can judge for ourselves?
If there are students from Clare reading this or indeed anyone who is connected to Clareification, it would be extremely interesting to hear your story.
thanks
In line with the above, the issue here is the suspicion of “cover-up”. This suspicion may be entirely unfounded, however, you don’t challenge this suspicion by keeping schtum.
Of course, there’s always the possibility that no-one connected with Clare gives two figs what the outside world thinks. This is a perfectly valid approach, but it does, of course, attract its own consequences.
My burning questions are:
1 - Did the edition in question target Islam/Muslims alone, or did other religions and creeds fall victim?
2 - What was the nature of the most objectionable content?
Thanks and regards,
Brownie.